Racoon island. Our exercise having given us an appetite, we landed and dined under a shady bank on the right, opposite to a creek, which from that circumstance, and its not being noticed in our chart or Navigator, we named Meridian creek.
{131} Here we began to see again the tops of the low river hills on the right, but on the left the extensive bottom still continued, notwithstanding which the settlements are very thinly scattered, especially for the last eight miles.
At half past two we were abreast of Eighteen mile creek on the right, so called from its being that distance from Point Pleasant.
Five miles from where we dined is Swan creek, a handsome rivulet on the right, and Mercer's bottom, a fine settlement on the left, and a mile further, it is separated from Green's bottom by the Little Guiandot, a beautiful small river.
Green's bottom settlements, which are very fine and populous, extend along the left bank three miles, and a mile beyond them the river hills approaching within a quarter of a mile of the bank, a remarkable cliff called the Hanging rock, impends from about half their height, and they again recede. On the right opposite to Hanging rock, is a bank of clay under which is a substratum of fine potter's clay.
It is two miles from Green's bottom to the next settlement. A gust threatening, we stopped to shelter at it—but the house was locked up, and no one at home. Every thing here testified to its being an honest neighbourhood as the smoke-house was left open, with a quantity of fine bacon in it—a crib was full of corn, and shirts and jackets were left drying on the garden fence.
After the shower, we went on three miles to Miller's farm house at the mouth of Federal creek on the right,
